


...fuck it out

by jonphaedrus



Series: cidnero but its abo this time [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: 3.55 Spoilers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Bonding, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 01:27:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13447599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: “I can smell you, you know,” Cid snaps back.





	...fuck it out

**Author's Note:**

> whats editing i dont care
> 
> youre here for abo. im here for abo. its never gonna be good. lets accept that typos will exist, nero will get fucked so hard he throws up, and go on with our lives

Only once they’re on the Enterprise do Biggs and Wedge stay up above on deck, making sure they arrive safely to Mor Dhona, and leave Cid and Nero below in the small quarters of the bowels of the ship. It’s dark, even with the port-holes open, and they lean together over the blueprints that Nero has drawn up. They’re very sketchy—he’s not had tools or time to make complex schemas. All the plans that they need to activate the Omega Weapon are tied up in the monstrous bowels of his terrifying little brain. Cid, unfortunately, just has to trust him, and hope that Nero knows what he’s doing.

That’s not a good feeling.

“And you’re _certain_ that’s going to work?” Cid asks, glancing up at the other man, who has leaned forward over the table, his long-fingered hand splayed over the blueprint, narrow fingers tracing over calculations done rapidly in longhand. Nero clearly had not actually expected to have the Council say _yes_. He hadn’t come as prepared as he had pretended.

Cid had been in school with Nero. He knows what last-minute deadline crunch looked like.

“What, do you want some promise of a level of error under nought?” Nero looks up at him, his thin lips pressed into a line. “I cannot possibly guarantee you a complete impossibility of disaster, Garlond. You should know that isn’t how this works.”

Cid glares, and leans forward, and takes a deep breath to argue, and—

Freezes.

He opens his mouth, and _scents_ , in a way he hasn’t in years, and narrows his eyes, looks up at Nero. Nero has looked away from him, won’t meet Cid’s gaze, and he reaches up one hand seemingly without thinking, rubs at the side of his neck, just over his right shoulder, half on his spine, and Cid feels like someone’s just punched him in the diaphragm hard enough to drop him to the floor.

“Of course,” he says, when he has his air back. He can’t look at Nero. He can’t look at that hand, hovering just over the side of his neck. He can’t— “We shall just have to trust in the infallibility of your majestic ego, then, I suppose. What’s the worst that could happen? We’re all going to die one way or the other.” They don’t just have _not much_ choice. They have no choice.

They send the Warrior of Light to almost certain death, they wake Omega and hope against bloody nail-biting hope it works, or they wake Omega and everything backfires. At least if that happens neither Cid nor Nero will be around to see the aftermath. They’ll be dead long before anyone else on the ground gets razed into smithereens.

Nero going into Heat won’t matter if they’re both fucking dead, after all. And there’s not much Cid can do about it now.

 

 

(They were seventeen. Cid had pinned Nero facedown to the sweat-ruined sheets of their bed, hands grasping his narrow sharp hipbones so he couldn’t move back off of Cid’s knot, and felt him writhe, shaking, snarling like a cornered animal as Cid pumped him full, came inside him, his knot swollen and Nero’s body straining around him.

“Please,” Nero had begged, and Cid had nuzzled into the corner of his neck, over his scent glands, over the sweet softness at the most vulnerable part of him, felt as Nero rocked back onto his cock. “Please, please,” until Cid had pressed his nose into the hinge of his jaw and bit down on the slope of his neck, hard, _harder_. Bit down until he’d tasted blood, until Nero had made this noise—soft and broken, high in his throat. It had been the most beautiful thing that Cid had ever heard, before or since, when they Bonded. He’d felt something inside himself break down. Cid had cried, tears lost in their sweat, puddled on Nero’s pale skin.

The bite had been just low enough that Nero’s uniform collar had covered it.

Just barely.

Cid had jacked off to the sound Nero had made that day for almost ten years, remembering the way his salt-soaked skin had tasted, and how, for that one moment, he’d _understood_ Nero. His nova-brilliant brain, so fleeting a touch, and it had just. Clicked.

It’s only as a grown man that he’s started to regret having Bonded Nero, because he had neglected one small issue in the Rut-addled arousal-ugly morass of his teenaged orgasm-crazed brain: he and Nero are both stubborn as mountains. Neither one of them will break their damn Bond. Even fucking now, neither one of them will break it. It's like playing a game of Garlean Roulette, only they each have a finger on the trigger, and are in a staring contest trying to telepathically force the other one to pull down first, and Cid will be damned to all seven hells if he’s going to be the one that breaks.)

 

 

Give him the laurels: Cid manages to make it until they’re alone again, halfway down into the bowels of the Enterprise, before he grabs the collar of Nero’s stupid fucking coat and slams him against the railing. He’s been edging into Heat for the last day and a half, and it’s muffled—they aren’t exactly young any more—and he’s Bonded, so most people have ignored it. Studiously. Mostly because Biggs and Wedge _know_ already, and Yda is in no state to be considering anything at all.

If the Warrior of Light knows, well, they aren’t saying anything, and for that, Cid is grateful. They probably do. They’ve seen enough of Cid and Nero now. They aren’t exactly subtle.

How can they be?

Standing two steps higher than Nero, for once, Cid has a leg up on him, leverage, and Nero snarls into his mouth when they kiss, shoving at his chest.

“Garlond—“

“I can _smell you_ , you know,” Cid snaps back. He’s halfway into Rut; the only thing that’s kept him from toppling the rest of the way in has been the stress of the situation. They haven’t been somewhere safe to knot, but now, that’s not true. They’re going back to Mor Dhona. He could easily pin Nero down and fuck him until he cried. Nero’s glaring at him, visibly on-edge, like a cornered coeurl. “You’re still my Bondmate.”

“As if I have any interest in so being.” Nero’s words would be a lot more convincing if he had ever seriously attempted to break the Bond. “ What, just want a stress reliever, since your friend is dead?”

“Say one more fucking word, Nero, and I’ll deck you.”

They stared one another down, their breathing loud against the low hum of the Enterprise’s engines. Cid can feel Nero’s pulse where his fingers are dug into his neck through the cotton of his collar. It’s running high and fast. His skin is burning; this close, Cid can see the sweat beading on his hairline, hear how quick and ragged he’s breathing. But he hasn’t spoken.

When Cid leans closer again, close enough their lips brush, Nero shakes in his arms. One hard tremble. He takes a sharp, sudden intake of breath. It’s explosive in the silence. He lifts his hands from clutching the railing, grabs Cid’s shirtcollar, and drags him over. The second kiss is deeper, slower, and Cid moans into Nero’s mouth. He tastes like home, his skin is on fire. They’re never going to settle down, raise a family, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t—

Nero is a disaster, but he’s been Cid’s disaster since they were fourteen. If twenty years, amnesia, and the end of the world hasn’t changed that, _nothing_ will.

Nero is practically thrumming against him. He’s so deep in Heat that when Cid grabs at his throat, digs his thumb into the Bondmark on the side of his neck, Nero almost drops to his knees, begging and whining wordlessly, clawing at Cid’s neck, shoulders, jaw. “Not here,” Cid finally manages, when his vision stops whiting out. His Rut is pounding in his blood. He’s going to fuck Nero on the floor if they don’t stop; Nero’s asking for it, and his body is insisting that he breed the other man sooner rather than later. Here’s his omega, for the first time in years in his arms. There’s only one option. He has to—

“Absolutely fucking not,” Nero snarls, shoving him away. He’s gasping for breath, presses on hand to his chest. His hair is starting to wilt with sweat, the curls sticking to his forehead. He fumbles with one shaking hand to straighten them, tugs his collar back up. Even all the way up, Cid can still see the very faint impression of one of his canines and his front teeth, embedded years ago, scarred onto Nero's pale skin. “If you hadn’t noticed, Garlond, you’re nearly a fulm shorter than I am.”

“I’ll still fucking deck you, Nero.” Cid is _well aware_ he’s a head and shoulders shorter than every other pureblooded Garlean he’s ever met, Nero included. They’re far enough into the Heat/Rut bond that breaking it would probably be worse than just following through; he thinks he can make assumptions safely. “Trust me. I get to spend three days looking at your face stuck to my knot—there’s not a lot of places to go if I try it.”

“Five days,” Nero says, abruptly. He’s too uncomfortable, too worn-thin, for actual eye contact—Cid’s learned to read the signs he’s doing his alternative, and Nero is staring intently at his eyelid. “Still five.”

It smells to the heavens of slick in the hallway. Cid swallows.

He needs fresh air.

 

 

Nobody even bothers to stop them. There’s a world of cleanup to deal with. Omega to find. But there’s absolutely nothing that they’ll be good for right now, because by the time they reach Mor Dhona again Nero is so jumpy he’s barely staying in one place and Cid’s head feels like he’s just been punched in the temple one too many times.

They don’t even make it to Cid’s bed. They fuck on the floor like teenagers. It’s the first time they’ve actually had sex since they were eighteen, so it’s not so surprising that they went right back to old habits. Their knees will complain in the morning, but at the time it’s happening, Cid doesn’t care. Cid can’t think about anything but the fact that his omega is under him, crying as Cid fucks him inside-out, cheeks as red as his stupid armor, hair mussed and sweaty and matted. In the fever-haze of Rut, it’s actually impressive he can think at all, because—

Nero. Cid has forgotten what he’s like. What he’s _really_ like. How it is to see him come apart against his will, until he’s broken down and his blue eyes are rolling. He comes right away the moment Cid gets in him, his cock pulsing little spurts of cum over the base of his stomach, and then again when Cid knots him, and that time he screams in agony, stretching in ways he hasn't prepared for. Even biological imperative can't do much for just the sheer ravages of time, and Nero's cunt is painfully tight in a way that reminds Cid of what it was like when they were all of fifteen. It’s been too long, Cid hisses apologies as Nero’s body locks up, keeps him in, keeps them _tied_.

Cid manages to assuage some of the pain, Nero swearing himself blue in the face, his jaw clenched as he writhes on Cid’s knot (he’s bigger than he used to be, he knows, now they’re adults and through puberty properly), by nuzzling up into the hollow of his throat as much as he can even with the disparity in their heights, by scraping his teeth over their Bond until he can feel the buzz of it, the low pressure, the _home_ sense.

They make it to the bed afterward, before they fuck again, and the second and the third time are in bed. On the fourth time, Cid rolls Nero over and rides his ass until Nero is mindless and his face is flushed-red and ugly with splotches, and Cid doubles over him and thrusts home as deep as he can, coming up into him.

He scrapes his teeth over the Bond, feels the buzz, and whispers as he knots up, hips twitching forward of their own volition, thinks about how deep he is, painting Nero’s cervix with his cum, pounding it into him. Gods forbid they should have a child should it take. “Can I?” Cid asks. He doesn’t mean coming in Nero—they’re too far past that. No, he means—

“Fuck you,” Nero replies, and then, moments later, his voice cracking, ragged after screaming and sobbing, “ _Please_.”

Cid bites down, just to the side of their first bond, right over the heat of Nero’s scent gland, and the keening noise he makes—soft and broken, high in his throat, is. It’s a sound that sounds like the way superheated glass freezes and shatters. It’s a sound that reminds Cid of the way Dalamud had shattered, the way the World of Darkness had smelled, it sounds like Nero is unspooling and opening up, raw and cold and ugly inside. Hot. Warm. _Home_. His blood on Cid’s tongue is iron-tang, his skin is salty with sweat. He’s crying, they’re _both_ crying, and Cid wraps his arms under Nero’s chest, pulls him back, face buried in his curly hair, as they tremble and sieze together.

 

 

And at some point, as the Heat has leeched out of both of them, Cid goes to sleep, and wakes up and Nero is gone. And the Bond is cool—not broken, the trigger still remains un-pulled—but _cooled_. He’s shutting himself off again.

Cid breaks down every piece of scrap metal they have by himself for three days until he’s ready to talk to anyone again.

He doesn’t cry, but he feels knotted up inside. Papalymo is dead. Shinryu and Omega are on the loose. People— _more_ people—are going to die. Eorzea, Garlemald, are going to war. His jaw aches with how tight he clenches it. His temples throb.

The sounds his hammer makes as he breaks down scrap are loud, rhythmic, and remind him of the way Nero’s heartbeat sounds in Heat, when Cid’s knotting him. Flutter-fast, quick, light, and as deep as the soul of the world.

It was _easier_ when he could only barely remember.

 

 

Castrum Oriens is hot. The Fringes are hot. After Ishgard, cold to the bone, Cid is regretting having to wear proper soldering clothes. He’s _tired_. He tramps around every day, all across the Fringes, chasing retreating Garlean forces and trying to find the aethertrails Shinryu and Omega left cutting like knifeblades through the sky.

Only an old blind idiot vilekin could think Omega is anywhere but the Yawn. The line of the blast Shinryu had left ends there. But they’re still trying to figure out what all had even _happened_ , that day over Baelsar’s Wall. There is a difference between finding Omega and figuring out just how much long term damage has been done by Nero’s _obvious solution_.

Cid hates how much he wishes he had Nero for this. Cid has always been better with things he can see, hold, feel. His brain works best with tangibility. He needs to be able to interact with things. He _can’t_ interact in the same way with theoretical numbers, with aethertrails, with calculations that each vary half a percent from one another in terms of active, passive, uncalculable damage.

He needs Nero. He needs the dumbass who _made_ this fucking mess. He needs another brain to bounce ideas with, to help check his work. But he’s not going to say that to anybody, because the only thing he can think of is that he woke up and Nero had run off and vanished into the night. _Coward_. Gods, why is he such a coward.

Cid stops in the middle of the Castra, and just takes a long, deep breath.

It’s been pressing at the back of his skull for almost three weeks. This constant, low buzz. He knows what it is—it’s Rut. Seeing his omega, who has fucked off to who-knows-where and is about as likely to come back as the sky is to turn pink or Zenos is to suddenly surrender all Garlean-occupied territories to their original residents, set off something inside him. He wants to find Nero and _force_ him to stay. After all, what if their Heat took? What if—  
  
Yeah, he really doesn’t want to think about that, actually.

“How goes it?” Raubhan’s voice surprises him out of his fugue, and Cid looks up. Raubhan cocks his head slightly. “You’re later back than usual.”

“More of the same,” Cid replies after a moment, not wanting to admit aloud that the reason for his lateness back to the Castra is the fact that he feels like someone’s given him the flu. His body aches, his head throbs, he’s running a low-grade fever, he’s been nauseous for two days. “One of these days, maybe we’ll figure out what the hells happened that blasted that giant hole in the ground.” As he’s speaking, Cid unbuttons his coat—he needs fresh air, and it’s at least a little cooler in the Castra, under the foliage.

Raubhan’s face tightens visibly. “My apologies, Master Garlond,” he says, immediately formal, cool. “But—“ And Cid looks slightly to the side, sees that Raubhan’s got his hand pressed to the side of his neck, over the old faded bite scars there. Cid looks down at himself, soaked in sweat, still burning with the low coals of Rut, and closes his eyes.

“Ah,” he says, at last. “I’ll give you a report after I shower.” It’ll cut the scent, at least. Cid feels chagrined; he knows he’s been more irritable than usual, and Jessie’s about ready to bite his head off for totally suborning all the Ironworks official projects to turn them into the Omega-hunting squad, but in all fairness, he did help a certifiably mad scientist unleash what may or may not be an ancient unstoppable evil onto Eorzea, so it’s not _totally_ unfair he drag everyone into cleaning up the mess.

“Find your omega, more like,” Raubhan says, and Cid looks away from him, his mouth a tight line. He lets out a shaky breath. “Get out of everyone’s hair, Garlond. You’re a sabotender liable to bite.”

Cid means for it to come out kindly. He means for it to be gentle; they’ve all seen how visibly he’s been mourning, even though his Bond with Ilberd was broken years ago. It’s a harsh loss, so soon on so many other losses. It would drive a lesser man to madness.

“Mine isn’t coming back either,” Cid says, and it comes out harsh and painful, and his throat closes up after he speaks. Neither one of them says anything, and then he bows his head, lets out a slow breath. “I,” he starts.

“Go shower, Garlond,” Raubhan’s voice is tight, his vowels clipped, his accent thick. Cid wants to curse himself blue in the face; they’re all on edge, and he doesn’t need to make it any worse. He considers apologizing; decides better of it. He just nods, mutely, and leaves, squeezing his eyes shut and taking deep breaths and trying to focus on _not_ biting anyone else’s head off. He has a reputation for a temper, sure, but that doesn’t give him any right to be an ass. To anyone. For any reason.

He gets his coat off, and bundles it up. Cid finds the shadow of one of the abandoned, repurposed Castra buildings, leans into the shade-cooled stone, digs his forehead into the grooves of the joins of the bricks, and bites down on the thick, padded cotton of his welding coat, and takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly.

“ _Fuck.”_

**Author's Note:**

> twitter, tumblr @jonphaedrus


End file.
